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Topic: Poll: How many kWh per day does your home use when you are away traveling? (Read 15739 times)

I have a 35 year old SubZero built in refrigerator/freezer that uses 8 to 10 kWh per day by itself. So why don't I replace it with a energy efficient model? Hahahaha That would cost me $15,000.....so if I could save 80% on energy that would be 8 kWh per day or $1.00/day since my power cost $.125 per kWh. Thus it would take me 41.1 years to save that $15k.

That SubZero will run another 35 years with just a few grand in parts.....so I'll just be an energy dinosaur.

I run about 400 to 500 watts just for my in-house server farm, add in appliances (fridge, freezer, DVR, etc) and my daily average usage when not at home is double that. I'm not really concerned about tracking down the small loads, more interested in looking for unexpected large loads and trend over time.

I retired one server and replaced the full-size Dell with a small XeonD server and solid state drives. Now I'm down to about 300W for the server farm, including the power drawn by the PoE switch (feeds cameras, etc so they don't need their own wall wart).

I have a 35 year old SubZero built in refrigerator/freezer that uses 8 to 10 kWh per day by itself. So why don't I replace it with a energy efficient model? Hahahaha That would cost me $15,000.....so if I could save 80% on energy that would be 8 kWh per day or $1.00/day since my power cost $.125 per kWh. Thus it would take me 41.1 years to save that $15k.

That SubZero will run another 35 years with just a few grand in parts.....so I'll just be an energy dinosaur.

It is nice to be able to quantify energy calculations, instead of just guessing.

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I run about 400 to 500 watts just for my in-house server farm, add in appliances (fridge, freezer, DVR, etc) and my daily average usage when not at home is double that. I'm not really concerned about tracking down the small loads, more interested in looking for unexpected large loads and trend over time.

I retired one server and replaced the full-size Dell with a small XeonD server and solid state drives. Now I'm down to about 300W for the server farm, including the power drawn by the PoE switch (feeds cameras, etc so they don't need their own wall wart).[...]

For what it's worth, a few added comments from my end as to what I've been up to on energy at my house, since starting this poll:- got my solar and my batteries all sorted. No appliance efficiency improvements that I'm aware, but (maybe) some improvements I think in overall solar kWh per day harvested.- got a used Plug-in Hybrid Chevy Volt. How many kWh extra per day does it add to my home use? I have no good idea, I can't get the Ted5000 to work on that panel. Wild guess @ average 15 electric miles per day = about 5 kWh per day added to home use. When away traveling, this is not the case though, the vehicle is either at the airport or driving with me.- no really strong progress on home "baseline", so I am still between 3-4 kWh per day when away traveling, though I guess recently there are signs that I can get this back down below 3 kWh per day (I forget where I was with this when I filled out the poll). Maybe even below a "measured" 2 kWh per day if I was really into it. This is just a matter of more carefully going through the house, if I feel like it, and turning off or unplugging certain small items. I say "measured" because with the TED5000 not working on that one panel, I'll assume that my actual use could be a bit higher.

- got a used Plug-in Hybrid Chevy Volt. How many kWh extra per day does it add to my home use? I have no good idea, I can't get the Ted5000 to work on that panel. Wild guess @ average 15 electric miles per day = about 5 kWh per day added to home use. When away traveling, this is not the case though, the vehicle is either at the airport or driving with me.

If your wild guess is close, it sounds pretty good. At least at the rates we have around here. What amp breaker do you need to plug that into?

- got a used Plug-in Hybrid Chevy Volt. How many kWh extra per day does it add to my home use? I have no good idea, I can't get the Ted5000 to work on that panel. Wild guess @ average 15 electric miles per day = about 5 kWh per day added to home use. When away traveling, this is not the case though, the vehicle is either at the airport or driving with me.

If your wild guess is close, it sounds pretty good. At least at the rates we have around here. What amp breaker do you need to plug that into?

A few years ago, I had a 7.2 kW J1772 Level 2 charge station installed. At 240 Volts, in theory this would be 30 amps. However, with the Leaf and the Volts that I've had, neither one would accept higher than about 3.3 kW, so they were not drawing that much juice.

[edit: not 100% sure this answers the question, but at least clarifying: it is 240 Volts, not 120.... also, installing the 240 Volt equipment in my garage kind of forced the issue, along with my solar system, battery system and everything else, so an entirely new panel in my garage from when I moved into the house.]

A few years ago, I had a 7.2 kW J1772 Level 2 charge station installed. At 240 Volts, in theory this would be 30 amps. However, with the Leaf and the Volts that I've had, neither one would accept higher than about 3.3 kW, so they were not drawing that much juice.

[edit: not 100% sure this answers the question, but at least clarifying: it is 240 Volts, not 120.... also, installing the 240 Volt equipment in my garage kind of forced the issue, along with my solar system, battery system and everything else, so an entirely new panel in my garage from when I moved into the house.]

Yep, that answers my question. So you your case you're less than 15 amps, that's not bad at all. Less than I expected.

A few years ago, I had a 7.2 kW J1772 Level 2 charge station installed. At 240 Volts, in theory this would be 30 amps. However, with the Leaf and the Volts that I've had, neither one would accept higher than about 3.3 kW, so they were not drawing that much juice.

[edit: not 100% sure this answers the question, but at least clarifying: it is 240 Volts, not 120.... also, installing the 240 Volt equipment in my garage kind of forced the issue, along with my solar system, battery system and everything else, so an entirely new panel in my garage from when I moved into the house.]

Yep, that answers my question. So you your case you're less than 15 amps, that's not bad at all. Less than I expected.

Yes, I think it's both vehicle and equipment and electrical system dependent. I had a friend visit who was driving a Tesla Model X and the Teslas are known for fairly fast AC charging, if the output can provide it. So, I don't recall the exact numbers, but I think he was drawing something like 30 amps, in that case.

but all it shows is that my home energy use during a one-week vacation recently was about 3.35 kWh per day. There is a problem with the garage measurements not reflecting everything going on there, but even if that worked properly, I think it still might have been below 4 kWh.

I just got back from a trip and checked mine again. Previously I posted here that I was at about 4 kwh. This time it was about 4.6 kwh. The difference must have been that this time it was a lot hotter, so the refrigerator would have run more.